ATROCITY IN LITERATURE

How can you write about Holocaust, slavery, wars? And can you?

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Hey guys. The last
week has been super busy as the uni started on Monday and I've been
trying to combine studying and working at the same time. So my
apology for not adding anythig for such a long time! However, as I
was getting ready for the beginning of uni I did a lot of reading and
today I would like to share some books I have recently read and which
are (in my opinion) definitely worth of your attention!

As
I already mentioned in my previous article, this year I'm studying a
course called American Innovation
(discussing American literature in 19th
and 20th
century) and then Art and Atrocity
(dealing with the process of facing trauma and the way of putting it
on a paper). And so I have to admit that this year is definitely not
going to be funny, but rather gloomy as I am about to read about the
oppression of black people in America, and the atrocity of Holocaust
and another devastating events in human history. Here
are some of the books which made me to stop for a second and realize
how lucky I am to be alive, to have my family, to go to Uni. You
think that this is a cliché. Well, read these books and you will
agree with me:

The Ways of White
Folks by Langston Hughes - a collection of short stories
reflects the struggle of black people defending their rights in the
white America of the 1920s and '30s. Hughes offers to his readers
different types of narrators and forms of a storytelling. Yet what
connects them all is Hughes' powerful voice urging America to finally
become a country of freedom and happiness for every single man,
exactly as it states in the Declaration of Independence.

Fragmentsby
Binjamin Wilkomirski - the narrator recalls his painful memories of
a childhood from 1939 to 1948. Describing his years in a
concentration camp, Wilkomirski puts together fragments of his memory
in attempt to set himself free. I remember I was not amble to breath
while reading certain parts of this book. (Note - as I tried to
find more information about the author, I came across certain
articles questioning the verity and reliability of the text. Some of
them argue that Wilkomirski simply fabricated his childhood memories.
I will let everyone to make their own judgment about this claim.)

Maus
by Art Spiegelman - Spiegelman produces a grafic novel depicting an
interview with his father, a Jew and survivor of Holocaust. The
author uses mice and cats as symbols of Jews and Nazis, which only
enhances the haunting tragedy of the situation back in 1940's. Some people suggest
that it is unethical to depict Holocaust in the form of a grafic novel (cartoon),
however, I believe that you will not agree with them once you read
Maus.

Kaddish for an
Unborn Child by Imre Kertész -
the last book about Holocaust I want to mention to you (at least
today). The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature deals with the
trauma caused by the concentration camp Auschwitz and the feeling of
sin and guilt after surviving its inhuman conditions. It is not easy
to read as it has no solid form but it rather depicts the stream of
author's consciousness. Kertész writes in long sentences and jumps
from one topic to another, seemingly not connected at all. It took me
more than one reading to at least partially grasp the concept. And I
believe that it is going to take me another three to four readings to
understand it. All of it.

Have
you read any of these books? What do you think of them? Is it
possible to write about themes like slavery or Holocaust?

I
believe that it is possible to write about those themes. Because the
books above are a proof of that.